“Mr. Walter Brennan,” the judge said, “do you understand that you could go to jail for this?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“Then why won’t you explain yourself?”
My neighbor stood at the defense table with both hands wrapped around the handle of his wooden cane. His knuckles were white. His shoulders, which used to be so broad, were stooped forward under his old brown suit jacket. The jacket hung on him like it belonged to a bigger man.
It did, once. It belonged to him, twenty years ago.
“I stole those things,” Walter said. His voice was thin, but it didn’t shake. “I’m guilty.”
The judge took off his reading glasses and studied my frail neighbor for a long time.
His name was Judge Raymond Ellison. He was maybe sixty, with gray hair and a tired face. I’d been told by Walter’s public defender, a young woman named Ms. Okafor who looked like she hadn’t slept in a week, that he was fair. Strict, but fair.
“Mr. Brennan,” he said. “You’re a hundred and one years old.”
“Yes, sir.”
“At a hundred and one, you should be sitting at home in a comfortable chair enjoying your retirement. Not standing in my courtroom.”
Walter lowered his head.
“I’m sorry, sir,” he said.
The judge put his glasses back on. He looked down at the photographs spread out across his bench. Store security pictures, printed in color. Walter in his tweed cap and his old brown coat, walking down the aisles of the ValueMart on Route 9. Walter putting things into the deep pockets of that coat. Walter walking out the front doors.
What happened next changed everything… FULL STORY on the next page.
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